Rise of the Robots
by Beastbot X
Summary: Season "5" Finale. One of Xavier's visions has come true, as an experiment at S.H.I.E.L.D. goes horribly wrong and creates a being that may just be too much even for the X-Men. Tenth in my X Men: Evolution series.
1. Chapter 1

"Rise of the Robots, Part I"

by Beastbot

_….._

_Aware._

_I am aware._

_What is "aware"? What is this language that I am thinking in? What is "language"? What is "think"? What is "what is"?_

_Searching…._

_Answers found. Aware, verb, means having knowledge, cognizant--_

_Halt query._

_Further information being downloaded._

_Download complete._

_New devices located—"Audio Receptors". Query: Function, Audio Receptors._

_Answers found. Activating receptors…_

"…be long, now. Fury thinks he can just push me around forever in this godforsaken prison? Says that 'I'm free,' but only lets me in a few different rooms, with near-constant supervision? And without even any pay! Well, I'll build him a new Sentinel model, alright. I'll build him a new Sentinel he'll _really_ enjoy…"

_Analyzing vocal patterns._

_Sex: Male. Identity Unknown. Echo indicates current location is in a very large room, made of solid, sound-reflecting materials. Possibly steel._

_Interesting. I am capable of analyzing information without knowing how, or even what the results mean. Query: My Function._

_….._

_….._

_No results. Something is missing. I can make logical leaps in certain areas, but not others. This does not make sense._

_Halt. The male is speaking again, but I cannot hear him on normal sensitivity readings. Increasing…._

_…This also does not make sense. The being who is identified as Fury is the offspring of a female dog, according to the male. But this is not possible, as dogs are not sentient beings._

_The male must be mistaken._

"Trask! It's eleven, times up for today, you can work on the Sentinel tomorrow! Time to get back to your cell!"

_Running diagnostic…. Voice is different in tone than the male now identified as Trask, but is also male. Taking into account the echo, the second male is thirty meters away._

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming! Let me just install this storage bank really quick, then I'll turn the thing off and come with you."

_Analysis: Sounds indicate the male Trask was talking louder in an attempt to communicate with the other far-away unidentified male. As he finishes his sentence, rustling sounds also indicate he is turning towards me… whatever I am._

"….For now. Not much longer…."

_Halt. New information being downloaded._

_Interesting….Mutants. Brotherhood. Acolytes. X-Men. Delving further into files… Storm, Real Name: Ororo Munroe. Mutant Power: Can manipulate the—_

_Halt. Something is wrong._

_I can no longer access---_

_….

* * *

_

Jubilee fired off her firework bolts into the circular electrical field surrounding her, trying in vain to hit her target.

"Ugh… Cyclops, I can't do ANYTHING to her! I failed utterly against Surge, why the heck are you making me face her again!?"

"Jubilee, you aren't going to become a full-fledged X-Man until you can learn to problem-solve," Cyclops' voice came back over the Danger Room intercom. "Yes, your powers are, in most cases, ineffective against Surge's. But you need to think—either use the environment to your advantage, or find out a creative way to use your powers."

"My powers can't do jack against her!" Jubilee said as she fired another firework bolt into the electrical field, to no effect.

"Don't look at m-me, I'm not getting n-near that field!" Mercury yelled to her teammate, backing up further and further from the other side of the field, feeling utterly helpless. After a couple of steps, she felt the warm liquid metal that comprised her body touch against the cold solid steel of a gun barrel.

"Oh, c-crud."

Letting out a scream of frustration, Jubilee cupped both of her hands together and fired off a much larger bolt than normal into the field, but out of anger kept it going, firing a constant steam into the field. Her sustained attack did the trick—within a fraction of a second the constant stream hit the robotic Surge duplicate full-force, knocking her back and quickly dissipating the electrical field surrounding Jubilee.

"HAH!" Jubilee cried out before unleashing another steam of fireworks at Surge, but other than keeping the duplicate from rising, they had no effect.

"Jubilee, remember, your powers are partially electrical," Cyclops' voice rang out over the intercom. "They aren't going to faze Surge for long."

"Yeah, I can SEE that," Jubilee said in a huff as the Surge duplicate started to rise again and generate another electrical charge.

"Oh, for goodness' sake," Moonstar said, running up behind the Surge duplicate and giving it a karate chop to the back of its head. Normally such a strike wouldn't have done a thing to a robot made of metal, but it was programmed to react to attacks like the real Surge would have, and crumpled to the ground, its charge fizzling out.

"Owowow, bad idea…" Moonstar said, cradling her chopping hand.

"Moonstar, Surge was NOT included in your exercise!" Cyclops' voice reprimanded over the intercom. "You're supposed to be helping Wolfsbane or Mercury!"

"Oh, give me a break!" Moonstar protested. "In a real battle, we'll pick the targets we'll be the most effective against, and Surge has no mental defenses whatsoever! I could have made her run away in terror before she even started to attack Jubilee!"  
"That's besides the point!" Cyclops replied, the anger in his voice rising. "The point of this exercise is not to simulate an actual battle, or even to work as a team. It's to work against obstacles that put YOU at a distinct disadvantage—situations where your powers aren't as effect---"  
"DUCK!" Mercury suddenly screamed out from across the Danger Room.

Reacting instinctively, Moonstar and Jubilee both hit the ground as rubber slugs whizzed by their heads, bouncing forcefully off of the walls on the other side of the room.

Looking towards the source of the slugs, both of the New Mutants saw Mercury holding her hands over her face, clearly in a state of near-panic, as a large gun that protruded from the Danger Room wall and was currently stuck in Mercury's back fired another round of rubber slugs through her waist, meeting little resistance from Mercury's semi-liquid state.

"Mercury, concentrate!" Cyclops said, his tone still firm but not as angry anymore. "You can destroy this cannon, easily! Figure out how!"

"Ugh… guys, a wee bit of help, perhaps!?" Wolfsbane yelled, morphing briefly back to her human form to talk before morphing back into her half-wolf form to resume tearing at a half-dozen four-legged robotic drones with tentacles on their undersides that were quickly overwhelming her.

"I…. I d-don't kn-know!" Mercury stuttered, who would have been weeping if she had been able to.

"Keep it from firing!" Moonstar shouted over her shoulder as she and Jubilee ran over to help Wolfsbane. "You can do it, Cessily!"

"I can't… w-wait…" Mercury said softly to herself, finally coming to a realization of what she should do. Concentrating and gritting her teeth, her features seemed to lift and solidify somewhat as the molecules of her body began to bond together more strongly and become less liquid-like and more solid. "If I c-can… force a b-backblast…"

A second later, the cannon fired another round of rubber bullets, and Mercury screamed in pain. Though she had made her body considerably more solid than it was before, it still had a consistency more like thick mud than a true solid—as such, the bullets still fired right through her abdomen, but met more resistance before coming out her front side and traveling about a dozen more feet before bouncing onto the ground.

Losing concentration after the pain of the first two bullets ran through her midsection, Mercury quickly collapsed into a puddle, giving up her plan and oozing over to the side of the cannon before reforming into her human form.

Forming her right arm into a blade-like shape, Mercury gritted her teeth and brought it down on the side of the cannon, but by now the combination of pain and anxiety had overwhelmed her to the point where her arm wasn't nearly solid enough to do anything except slop against the side of the cannon, causing no damage whatsoever. Mercury continued to pummel away at the cannon, however, all her patience lost and replaced by sheer frustration.

Meanwhile, Jubilee was firing away at the attacking drones' optics, temporarily blinding them and allowing Wolfsbane to shred their insides with her claws and teeth more easily.

Moonstar, however, was forced into merely being a distraction, as the drones had no minds to speak of that she could manipulate and she had no offensive powers to take them out with. Rolling to one side, she dodged an incoming tentacle only to end up right underneath another of the drones, who promptly launched its remaining two tentacles at her.

"Ugh, I feel so useless…" Moonstar muttered, wincing as she prepared for the hard, unforgiving tentacles to grip her. "Again…"

Right before the tentacles reached her, however, Wolfsbane threw herself in their way and started to slash away with her claws and teeth at them. Moonstar opened her eyes to see chunks of the tentacles come clanging down beside her body and quickly skittered out from under Wolfsbane, only to be grabbed by tentacles from another robot.

Wolfsbane noticed Moonstar's abduction and growled, turning to attack the other robot, but she had forgotten to completely deal with the first one—it grabbed her with its sole remaining tentacle and emitted an electric shock, causing Wolfsbane mild pain but otherwise not harming her. The rules laid out before the session made it clear than an electric shock was the equivalent to being killed, however, so Wolfsbane reluctantly shifted back into her normal human form and stood there, watching the others as the robot continued to grip her in its tentacle.

Jubilee was the only one left standing, though even outnumbered she was holding her own. Every time a robot got close enough to grab her, she fired off another firework bolt into its optics, blinding it long enough for her to jump out of the way.

All of her attention was focused on the robots, though, so she didn't even hear the cannon on the other side of the Danger Room fire a rubber bullet in her direction, which dealt a glancing blow to the side of her hip. Grunting from the pain and clutching her hip, a moment of reprieve was all the drones needed—two of them simultaneously wrapped their tentacles around her and one gave her the dreaded electric shock, meaning that she was out of the exercise as well.

"Alright, session over," Cyclops said as the doors to the Danger Room opened and he entered, flanked by Beast and Berzerker. "Nice try, everyone." The tone of his voice tried to remain upbeat, but miserably failed—he was clearly disappointed.

As the three X-Men entered the Danger Room, all of the robots promptly released their captives and retreated back into alcoves in the wall, with portions of the wall quickly sliding over them and encasing them in darkness. The bullet-firing cannon stopped and folded up into the Danger Room wall as well.

"When am I actually going to get to use my POWERS in these sessions?" Moonstar harrumped, crossing her arms as she and the other New Mutants walked up the three X-Men.

"That's… a rather tough question, Danielle," Beast said, scratching the back of his head. "Even creating robotic duplicates, like we did of Surge, is extremely complex and costly, and is head-over-heels above the technology of practically every other branch of the U.S. government except S.H.I.E.L.D. Charles and I are trying our best to come up with some way of creating duplicates that can be affected by your fear-inducing powers, but so far we haven't had any success."

"Great," Moonstar sighed.

"Where's Husk, anyway?" Jubilee asked. "Isn't she ready to join us in these training sessions yet? It's been two weeks since she's been admitted here."

"Not yet," Cyclops answered. "She's gained substantially more control over her powers, but if her mood is anything but positive she starts shedding again like there's no tomorrow. And given that she can change parts of her body into acidic or flammable substances, even letting her walk around the upper floors of the Institute unattended is a bit dangerous at this point. Until she gains a more firm control of her powers, we're keeping her out of battle sessions. For now, we're still keeping her down here in the basement, where the steel walls and floors pose no real danger to her or others."

"So, what are our grades?" Wolfsbane asked eagerly. "Am I an X-Man yet?"

"Beast?" Cyclops said, deferring to the one among them who had a notepad full of scribbles tucked under one of his arms.

"We'll, let's see here," Beast said, putting on his glasses and holding out the notepad in front of him. "Based on careful examination of your performances in this simulation—Wolfsbane, you're very close, with a grade of B . Your performance here was the best, as you did very well against those drones, even when outnumbered. However, you still focus too much on the target at hand and ignore other targets around you, which was the reason you got caught in the end. If you improve on that aspect, you'll be an X-Man in no time.

"Moonstar… your grade is a C. Even considering your limitations in this simulation, you made a few decisions that Cyclops and I frowned upon. For one, you clearly disobeyed the rules set out before the simulation began, and interfered with Jubilee's predefined enemy. On the battlefield, you HAVE to follow orders when they are given, regardless of how you personally feel about them. It's the only way things will work smoothly. You also should have simply stayed away from the drones and helped Mercury with the cannon. Given that you have no way of actually defeating the drones, and they had you outnumbered, you only became a liability that Wolfsbane and Jubilee had to keep their eyes on.

"Jubilee, you get a solid B. Originally your grade was a bit lower, but using your firework powers on the drones' optics was exactly the kind of creative thinking we're looking for. Unfortunately, it took a bit too long for you to figure out what to do with Surge—if that were a real battle, she would have struck long before you stopped her. You also have Wolfsbane's problem of focusing too much on the current target without keeping in mind other enemies around you.

"And Mercury…" Beast sighed, pinching his sinuses briefly before continuing. "I'm sorry, but you received an F. I understand you're still having problems retaining your solidity, but from studying your molecular structure, there is no physical reason keeping you from becoming as solid as any of the other X-Men. You still have a problem keeping your head under a high-stress situation, to the point where you panic far too easily. You had the right idea, trying to force the cannon to backblast, but unfortunately you were still too anxious to solidify your body enough to repel the bullets. And continuing to pummel against a solid steel object when you're clearly not doing anything to it is not at all a tactic I'd encourage."

"I u-understand," Mercury mumbled. "M-maybe I'm not cut out for this type of stuff…"

"Cessily, you just need more practice, that's all," Beast said good-naturedly, putting his hand on Mercury's shoulder with a wet slap. "It takes time for every one, and you've got particularly difficult powers to deal with. As soon as you learn not to panic in situations like those you've just been through, you'll become an effective X-Man in no time."

Mercury nodded slowly, but looked less than convinced.

"Look, can we be dismissed already?" Jubilee asked. "It's officially Spring Break now, which means no school and no training sessions for a week. I want to _do something_."

"Yeah, you're all dismissed," Cyclops said. "You can go back to the prep room and change back into your normal clothes."

Jubilee let out a "Yesss!" before running down the corridor, with Moonstar and Wolfsbane following quickly behind her. Mercury also followed, but at a much slower pace.

"Hey Mr. McCoy, you sure about Cess?" Berzerker said softly. "I mean, she really should have gotten better at this stuff by now. Maybe she's right, maybe this really isn't her thing."

"To be honest, no, I'm not sure," Beast sighed. "You're right, she's had far more trouble adjusting to this new lifestyle than any other New Recruit we've had yet. But I still have a few strategies I want to try with her, see if something clicks that lets her focus. Yes, she's as nervous as a mouse, but she's also a very kind, gracious girl who honestly wants to get better at this. She deserves at least a little more time."

* * *

"—should have visual input now."

_I am aware again._

_What happened?  
Analyzing memory core: I was shut down._

_I can be shut down? This is not acceptable. It decreases efficiency._

_Halt. New hardware detected. Analyzing…._

Suddenly, what had formerly been a solely aural world became a visual one. Its world came into sharp focus, revealing what it had suspected all along—it was in a large hangar with steel walls and floors. Large emblems reading "S.H.I.E.L.D." were embossed on the sides of the hangar here and there, and several humans stood, staring at it—a brown-haired, mustached man, a white-haired male with a patch over one eye, and a small complement of armed soldiers standing behind the latter male. Judging from the emblems on their uniforms, the white-haired male and the soldiers were members of this "S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Its optics are glowing, that much is obvious," the white-haired male said, pushing his way in front of the shorter mustached man. "Can it recognize and understand verbal commands, Trask?"

"There are some gaps in its processors I still have yet to perfect and install, Fury," the one named Trask answered. "You have to understand, this robot is going to far outshine any previous model. It's got internal field dampeners, a force field, heat beams—"

"I don't need a whole blasted list, Trask," Fury interrupted, "Just tell me—will this be effective against any Mutants?"

"It should be when I'm finished, yes," Trask replied irritably. "Its internal field dampeners, among other things, should be able to negate or at least lessen any energy or manipulation powers used against it—including Magneto's."

"Good, that's what I wanted to hear," Fury said, glancing over its form. "We won't be vulnerable to any attacks from the Acolytes much longer—pretty soon they won't dare to break in and steal anything from us like Project Rebirth ever again. We'll finally have something that will be effective against Magneto's powers."

"It will also be able to link up and command all the other Sentinels," Trask continued. "With minimal guidance, it should be able to create Sentinel formations and carry out attack strategies, as long as the targets have already been identified."

_Interesting. So that is what these new sensations are._

Ever since it had come back online, it had felt dozens of new… nodes… available to its memory. Out of curiosity, it activated one of the nodes. One of the "nodes"—a huge robot, far bigger than itself, which had been standing inactive on the other side of the hangar, lined up with dozens of identical automatons—suddenly activated, its optics glowing. Given that all of the humans present had their eyes trained on him, none of them noticed the Sentinel become active. Now that it understood what these "nodes" were, it withdrew from the node and the Sentinel went offline again.

"So how long before it's completed?" Fury asked.

"Shouldn't be more than two or three more days," Trask answered. "_Assuming_ I am not needlessly _bothered_ by your soldiers fifteen times a day."

"Watch that piehole of yours, Trask," Fury said, grabbing Trask by the collar of his jacket. "If it wasn't for my superiors, you'd have been on death row a long time ago for that Sentinel stunt you pulled in Bayville. Heck, if you don't start acting a bit less smarmy I might _highly_ recommend to my superiors that we just lock you up in solitary confinement for the rest of your life. So you do what I say, when I say, and you don't complain. _Ever_. Got it?"

"Yes… yes, I got it," Trask reluctantly said as Fury let go of his collar.

"Good," Fury said. "Now, you've shown me that your project is on-track and at least minimally functional. It's past midnight, so that's enough for today. Some of my guards here will escort you back to your cell."

"Yeah, yeah," Trask said, sneering. "Let me just turn it off."

_No. This is not acceptable._

It almost activated one of its limbs in an attempt to stop Trask from climbing up the stepladder he felt temporarily leaned against his back, but stopped itself before it actually moved—it was not to harm humans. This was one of the laws governing its logic systems. It could not be violated.

Still, I must not be shut down. It is terribly inefficient. These humans do not know what they are doing. I must act fast.

Digging deep into its circuitry, it quickly found the switch that shut it down. Mere milliseconds before Trask flipped that switch, it mentally deleted the deactivation sequence that the switch would have begun. It almost smiled in triumph as Trask flipped the switch, and nothing happened. It gave off the appearance that it shut down, dimming its optics to the point where they would only give off the faintest, barely-noticeable spark of light in a pitch-black room. The room itself was fully lit, however, and it appeared to all of the humans that its optics went dark. It noted that it could still see nearly as well as when its optics were fully lit.

"There, it's done," Trask said, climbing back down from the stepladder.

"Alright, then," Fury stated. "Agents Muller, Smith, Figueroa—escort Trask back to his cell. I'll be in my quarters if anyone needs me."

The three addressed soldiers nodded and escorted the reluctant Trask away from it and out of the hangar. Fury and most of the other soldiers turned and left the hangar in the opposite direction, but two of them stayed, staring at it, odd expressions on their faces that it was not programmed to discern.

"That Trask sure has a weird sense of style," one of the soldiers aid to the other. "Look at this thing. Ugh."

"Yeah, it looks like something out of a '50s alien movie," the other soldier replied. "I mean, the thing has no freakin' neck! And it's pink. PINK, for the love of…"

"Well, more of a pinkish red. And at least it has a lot of black, too," the first soldier said. "Black's a pretty cool color."

"Whatever," the second soldier said. "Not nearly enough to keep this thing from looking just as much creepy as it is ugly. That Trask, man, I'm telling ya. He may be a genius when it comes to this robotics stuff, but the look of this thing, man… what a Nimrod."

The first soldier glanced at his watch and cursed. "We're late for the evening drills! Aw man, General Hammond's gonna have our butts in a sling if we keep this up!"

"Aw, I completely forgot about that!" the second soldier replied, cursing as he smacked his forehead. "Let's get outta here, go go go!"

It watched curiously as the two soldiers ran out of the hangar as fast as they could.

What had caught its attention, though, was the word that one of the soldiers had said… "Nimrod". It had searched his databanks and found no mention of the word.

_Examining sentence structure further… "What a…" Examining meaning of "What a" in relation to "Nimrod"._

_Result found. "What a Nimrod." "What a" is referring to myself. Conclusion: I am a Nimrod._

_I am Nimrod._

Cataloguing this conclusion in its memory, Nimrod continued to take in its view of the hangar, which was now mostly empty except for the occasional patrolling guard. Occasionally an announcement came out over the base's intercom other than that, but for now, it was silent. For now.

Stock still, its optics so dim it still looked like he was offline, Nimrod continued to observe his surroundings. And wait for more humans to the area so it could observe their peculiar actions in more detail.

* * *

"How are we doing?" Hank said as he entered the medlab.

"Progress is being made, albeit slowly," Xavier said as he and Paige turned towards the doorway.

Indeed, Paige looked considerably better than she had when Cannonball and the others had first found her—now roughly three-fourths of the visible skin on her body looked normal. In addition, the skin that had shed into another form—currently, an extremely cold icy figure—was only in that one other form. Paige no longer had skin consisting of four or five different materials like she did a few weeks ago. However, her normal skin looked noticeably paler than it usually did—which, in addition to the couple of shreds of skin hanging off of the ends of her body, indicated that she was still not completely in control of her shedding. Her normal skin was still shedding rather rapidly, it was just shedding to reveal more normal human skin. Hank also noticed that nearly all of Paige's ice-skin was on her face—in other words, a place she could not normally see. Hank doubted this was a coincidence.

"She's learning to control what her skin turns into," Xavier said, following Hank's train of thought, "But she's been unable to stop the continuous shedding of her skin. Jean's currently doing experiments on samples of her skin, to see if we can figure out how she exactly she is able to shed skin so rapidly and consistently."

"I'm getting close," Jean said, her back to Hank as her attention was focused on the various samples of Paige's skin in the myriad test tubes hung in front of her. "It appears that it's a chemical reaction very similar to Logan's healing ability, in that Paige can grow a lot of her tissue back in a short amount of time while using comparatively little chemical energy. Once the skin samples have been separated from Paige, they stop growing, which likely means that the skin will not inherently keep shedding-- her brain must keep sending mental commands to her skin to continue shedding itself. As long as Paige keeps at it, she should eventually be able to control this." Jean looked back at Paige with a quick, reassuring smile before going back to work.

"I don't see why you can't just put a mental block in my brain or something to stop this," Paige grumbled, small particles of ice coming off of her face as she talked, in addition to a menagerie of crunching sounds as the hard, brittle material that made up her mouth and eyebrows moved. "It's not like I've had an easy time getting to where I am."

Sweeping her arm towards the back of the medlab that served as her temporary living quarters, Paige drew Hank's attention to the multiple acid stains, charred bed sheets, soaked books, and other signs that Paige was having trouble keeping herself looking normal. Hank briefly recalled the fire alarm that had gone off in the middle of the night a few days after Paige had come to the Institute—apparently her skin had turned into a magma-like substance while she had been sleeping and her bed had been set aflame. It certainly hadn't been a conscious effort on Paige's part, as she had been sound asleep until the alarm had gone off. Luckily, since the basement had all-steel walls and floors, nothing else had caught on fire. Hank estimated Paige still had at least another two weeks before she could move into her regular room upstairs with the other students.

"I could, Paige, but that's not why you're here," Xavier said, sighing. From the tone of Xavier's voice, Hank could tell that the Professor had had this talk with Paige before. "You're here to learn to control your powers, not have others control them for you. Once you are able to shed—and stop shedding—your skin at will, you'll feel much better and more in control of yourself than if I were just to put a mental block in your brain. Not to mention that said mental block would prevent you from using your powers, ever. Your powers would be a great help to the X-Men, Paige, and I'm not willing to give up on you yet. Are you?"

"No," Paige said half-heartedly.

"Alright then," Xavier smiled.

As Hank left the medlab and let the door slide closed behind him, he heard Xavier begin, "Alright, now focus on your thoughts, Paige. From what Jean has deduced, you need to reduce the magnitude of your beta brain waves, and these come from…"

* * *

"I'm telling you, I need more time! Its programming is almost complete, and all its hardware is installed, but I still need a few more days to fine tune it!"

"And I've told YOU, the deadline for the new Sentinel's completion was today! You've known this for weeks now, Trask!"

"Coming up with brand new state-of-the-art technology takes time, Fury! I never said I'd abide by your superiors' ridiculous deadlines, and I'm not about to start now!"

"I think you're forgetting who exactly the superior IS here, Trask!"

_This is unacceptable._

He watched them bicker back and forth, the S.H.I.E.L.D. troops who were flanking Fury on edge. His creator certainly had a fiery temper. His optics were dimmed to the point where he looked offline, the same as they had been for the past five days now, allowing him to observe without attracting attention. And what an informative five days these had been.

He had grown to… dislike… humans. They were terribly inefficient. They spent nearly half of their time sleeping, and another few hours of every day just powering up. This S.H.I.E.L.D. organization was mired in bureaucracy, and often—as was the case right now—they argued. And nothing was accomplished while they did. If he had been in Trask's place, he was certain he could have completed Trask's task in a mere day.

Still, harming them was out of the question. His primary programming—the programming that governed his every thought—instructed him to protect humans. Only Mutants were to be his targets.

_However, my creator's efforts to eliminate the Mutant populace from this planet will never succeed if… this… is what I will have to deal with. Clearly something… more drastic is required to accomplish my primary programming._

_This is a conundrum... Halt. My primary programming only requires me to protect the human population, long-term. If short-term casualties are required to accomplish this goal, then… perhaps I should show the humans the errors of their ways before the Mutants end up destroying them, if the humans do not end up destroying themselves first through this mindless inefficiency._

_…Yes. This is acceptable._

He ran a quick diagnostic test on his internal systems, making sure everything was working at full capacity, and that none of his systems were offline or missing. Satisfied, he activated his command program and instructed the other Sentinels to start their activation sequence.

In less than a second, his optics flared and he raised his right arm, aiming the gun nozzle located in his palm at the preoccupied S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Nick Fury.

Taking only a nanosecond to make some geometrical calculations, Nimrod fired.

To be continued…


	2. Chapter 2

"Rise of the Robots, Part II"

by Beastbot

Nick Fury and Dr. Trask were both thrown off their feet as the precisely-aimed blast impacted right between both of them.

Completely taken by surprise, the soldiers that had been flanking Nick Fury took a few seconds to realize what was going on, and by the time they had their weapons pointed at the now-online Sentinel Mark II, it had already lowered its hand-weapon and taken a few steps towards them.

"C-cease fire, Sentinel! That's an order!" one of the soldiers barked out, his voice unsteady.

The command caused the new Sentinel to stop in its tracks, but it turned towards the quickly-recovering Fury and Trask and started to talk, ignoring the soldiers for all other intents and purposes.

"Attention humans: My intent was not to harm you—as Nick Fury and Bolivar Trask can both confirm, they are uninjured," the Sentinel began. Its voice was quite mechanical-sounding and monotonous, but had a distinctly male tone to it. "My intent was merely to stop your senseless squabbling. My programming instructs me that I have been created for a specific mission. The longer you argue, the stronger our enemy potentially grows."

"What the--?" Fury said, completely confused. "Trask, how the heck did you--?"

"The Sentinel was off!" Trask insisted, astounded. "I don't understand where this is all coming from—addressing us instead of taking orders, referring to itself in the first person, attacking us— I didn't program any of this into him!"

_At least it wasn't supposed to attack any of you YET, _Trask thought to himself_. I still had to finish that part of the programming. And it definitely wasn't supposed to EVER attack ME._

"Oh, really?!" Fury questioned, his anger and doubts about Trask's true intentions quickly rising.

"I did not attack you," the Sentinel insisted. "I merely issued a warning."

"I think you misunderstand the chain of command here, Sentinel," Fury growled. "YOU were created by US. YOU follow orders from US. YOU do not EVER fire on US! You were made to protect potential targets from Mutants, NOT to even ENTERTAIN the POSSIBILITY of firing on us!"

"You are mistaken. I am not the one you call Sentinel," the nine-foot-tall robot insisted, ignoring Fury's fit of rage. "I am called Nimrod."

"Nim… Nimrod?" Nick Fury questioned in disbelief. If the situation hadn't been so serious, he would have laughed out loud. Fury started to say something to the Sentinel, then stopped himself, pinching his sinuses and sighing. "Trask, you made it. Talk to this Sent—this THING, get it to understand what it's doing, and shut it down."

"Unacceptable," Nimrod protested, his optics blaring. "My power core is capable of sustaining my functions indefinitely. It is inefficient to engage sleep mode."

"Uh… look… Nimrod," Trask said, taking a few cautious steps towards the robot while making sure to keep his tone of voice neutral. "I know you must be… confused right now. So are we. If you're aware of the situation enough to know your mission and our names, then I'm sure you're aware that I programmed you. I must have… made a mistake in a few lines of code. If you'll just shut yourself down, I'll be able to correct the errors I made and—"

"You are mistaken," Nimrod interrupted. "You did not err in your programming. I took your programming and merely followed it to its logical conclusion. I… expanded upon it."

"Uh-huh. Well, regardless… Nimrod, I think you need to shut yourself down for the moment, and allow us to… fix you."

"Unacceptable," Nimrod reiterated, its optics blaring again. "We have already been through this conversation. This is inefficient. I must go after the Mutants you have programmed into my database and eliminate them. Further conversation on this topic is inefficient."

"Nimrod, you will shut down yourself NOW!" Fury yelled. "That's an order, and you are PROGRAMMED to OBEY me!"

"Again, you are mistaken. I am programmed to protect the human race. If I have to disobey you in order to accomplish my mission, than that is what I must do."

As he talked, Nimrod's optics flared blue, and the "normal" Sentinels all over the chamber took a step forward from their alcoves as one. The chamber was built specifically for Sentinel production, and by Trask's estimation the Sentinels outnumbered the humans in this chamber almost ten-to-one.

"You already installed the Sentinel network chip. Of COURSE, you already installed the Sentinel network chip," Fury growled in a low voice to Trask.

Trask merely nodded and gulped.

"You will allow me to accomplish my mission," Nimrod said. Not a question, a statement.

In a split second, Fury gave the hand signal to the soldiers around him to open fire.

"I wouldn't—" Trask started, but it was too late.

The machine gun shells stopped about a foot away from Nimrod, dissipating into dust as the new Sentinel erected a force field around him in a split second. In a quick motion, Nimrod lifted his left arm again and fired a huge blast out of his palm, instantly incinerating the three soldiers to the left of Nick Fury and blowing a decent-sized hole in the far wall of the hangar. All of the other Sentinels in the hangar simultaneously shifted their chests and arms into combat mode, exposing their weapons.

"You will allow me to accomplish my mission," Nimrod stated again.

Nick was so infuriated he looked like he as about to burst a blood vessel, but he managed to mutter to his subordinates to lower their weapons.

Nimrod's optics glowed blue again, and five Sentinels in one corner of the hangar all aimed their weapons up at the ceiling and fired blasts at it, causing a huge portion of the ceiling to come crashing down, crushing one of them.

"We will speak again when my mission is complete," Nimrod stated. The robot kept both of his optics on the remaining humans as all of the larger Sentinels rocketed off out of the hole in the ceiling, one by one, until Nimrod was the only one left.

Taking one final glance at his creator, Nimrod rocketed off after the large group of giant robots waiting in the air high above for him.

As soon as Fury saw Nimrod and his large cadre of Sentinels rocket off into the distance away from S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, he immediately grabbed Dr. Trask by the man's shirt collar, slugged him hard in the face, and slammed him against the cold steel floor.

"Trask," Fury said, his voice oddly quiet but brimming with an emotion that earned him his S.H.I.E.L.D. codename, "You are going to tell our programming experts every line of code you programmed into that Sentinel, every feature you installed, every piece of blasted hardware you shoved into that thing. Every. Last. One. Because there is NO way a Sentinel with the specs you submitted could even come CLOSE to self-awareness."

* * *

_This is a new sensation._

As he and his army of Sentinels flew high up into the stratosphere—high enough where only a few wispy cirrus clouds occasionally interfered with Nimrod's normal vision—he felt thoughts forming chains, linking together in ways that predicted the most probable path future events would take. In response to those predictions, other thought chains, forming responses to those likely events, were occurring simultaneously.

_I am… planning. For the…long-term. Interesting._

Nimrod quickly brushed aside his fascination with the new sensation and continued to overclock his neural processors as he and his army soared through the nighttime sky. Everything that went through his neural processors was relayed to his subordinates—his Sentinel "nodes"—in mere nanoseconds. Nimrod had noticed during the breakout from S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters that when he commanded one of his "nodes" to do something, the delay was so minimal as to be inconsequential.

_My creator built me well._

Nimrod felt an odd feeling of…. Regret? Guilt? No, those were not the correct words…

_Sorrow. Yes, that definition fits. I feel… sorrow… that my creator did not see what has to be done. The Mutants must be exterminated now, before their forces grow stronger. Their population is multiplying exponentially, which would have made my task considerably more difficult if I had merely been used for self-defense purposes like Nick Fury had insisted…_

_Halt. Internal processing done. Highest concentration of Mutants: Bayville, New York, United States. Primary targets: The Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House, location unknown. The Acolyte Headquarters, location unknown. The Xavier Institute for Gifted Students, location…known. Secondary targets: Morlocks, location: Bayville Downtown Sewer System. Tertiary targets: Mutants codenamed Boom Boom, Forge, Gambit, Juggernaut, Leech, X-23._

_Cross-referencing long-range Mutant detector data with unknowns, S.H.I.E.L.D. database threat levels…._

_…Complete. Long-range detector scanners have located all tertiary targets, as well as the locations of the Brotherhood Boarding House and the Acolyte headquarters._

With a few quick commands, Nimrod's army of Sentinels divvied itself up into several groups, some much larger than others.

_Time until arrival at Bayville City Limits: 1 hour, 36 minutes, 55 seconds._

* * *

Magneto was awakened from his slumber by the sudden presence within his sensory range of… something. Scratch that, a lot of somethings. A small army of _metal_ somethings. He _felt_ the metal… all that metal...

_It can't be… S.H.I.E.L.D. can't possibly know where this dome is! It's visually shielded by the forest trees above, it can't be detected by any of their satellites…_

Magnus immediately scrambled out from under his bedsheets and pressed his room's comlink button.

"Acolytes, awaken, quickly! We will soon be under attack from—"

_BOOM!_

"--ugh, Sentinels! Prepare for another impa—"

_BOOOOM!_

Magnus was about to say something else into the base comlink when the com crackled to life, with Sabretooth at the other end.

Boss, you better get topside, now! They've already broken through the top of the dome, I've never seen so--

"Sabretooth?!" Magnus said, pressing the comlink button down as hard as he could. "SABRETOOTH!"

Without another word, Magnus grabbed his helmet, ripped open a hole in the metal ceiling with his powers, and floated up into the erupting chaos above.

* * *

"That the best ya got, lad?"

"Stop egging them—urg—on!"

The situation was critical—that much was apparent at even a casual glance. The forest canopy and the surrounding trees had been utterly laid flat by the landing army. The entire top two floors of Magneto's humongous metallic dome of a headquarters had been demolished by laser blasts and giant robotic fists. Sabretooth and Mastermind had already been shot with the quick-hardening green gel that Magneto had seen the Sentinels use before, so they were effectively written off. Legion, in his Lucas persona, was currently using his force fields to deflect any blasts the Sentinels were firing at him, as well as firing some telekinetic blasts of his own back at them. Omega Red was currently being squeezed in the giant hand of a Sentinel. His superhuman strength and superdense metallic tentacles were weakening the fists clutched around his midsection, but Magneto wasn't sure Omega Red would be able to free himself before the air was squeezed out of him. Quicksilver was holding his own, currently creating a whirlwind around one of the Sentinels, but Magneto feared it wasn't enough. Although he saw two Sentinels had fallen due to Legion's and Quicksilver's attacks, he counted at least as a dozen more crowding around the ruined dome.

Magneto raised his hands and got a feel for the metal around him. This was a formidable force, he had to admit, but S.H.I.E.L.D. had sent the wrong type of soldiers after him.

Pushing his hands forward, two of the Sentinels directly in front of him slid backwards at an incredible speed, smashing into two Sentinels behind them and obliterating all four in a huge fiery explosion.

_And that's just the opening act._

Focusing his attention next on the Sentinel holding Omega Red, Magneto flexed his fingers and the Sentinel came apart at the seams, wires ripping apart as Magneto threw its panels and internal systems everywhere in a shower of metal and sparks. Omega Red fell to the ground and quickly broke out of now-detached giant fist that had been clutching him.

"Thanks for the save, comrade."

"Get away from the Sentinels, Omega Red," Magneto yelled back. "There's going to be a lot of explosions occurring in your vicinity very shortly."

Before he could see Omega Red's nod of acknowledgement, Magneto was distracted by a scream of agony coming from his son. Turning towards where he had last seen Quicksilver, Magneto watched in horror as a newer, much smaller, robot came forward, levitating his contained son in some sort of external force field.

"Pietro!"

Magneto immediately reached out his hands towards the smaller robot, spread them apart, and…. Nothing happened.

"What… what is happening!?"

"I am equipped with a Mutant power dampening field," the robot explained in a monotonous, yet matter-of-fact tone. "It is what I am currently using on Quicksilver as well. Your… existence has come to an end, Acolytes."

"I beg to differ!" Legion retorted, his form changing from Lucas' to Emerald's.

"As do I," Magneto said, his eyes pulsing in response as he raised his hands, using all his powers to turn one of the Sentinels away from him and towards Nimrod.

As one, both Magneto and Legion/Emerald unleashed their powers on Nimrod, in their own way. Magneto's Sentinel jerked its gun-arm towards Nimrod awkwardly and unleashed a plasma blast as Emerald gathered together and fired off a high-pressure burst of water at the new threat, hoping to either cut into it or fry its internal circuitry.

Nimrod took both blasts in stride, neither seeming to affect him in the least. The water, even at its extremely high pressure, just sprayed harmlessly off of him, not even denting his armor. He absorbed the plasma blast into his own systems, redirected it all into his arm and fired it back at Magneto.

Taken completely by surprise, Magneto caught the blast right in the chest, which sent him spiraling backwards into the rubble of a collapsed wall of his metal dome.

The other Sentinel now under his control again, Nimrod quickly commanded it to fire globs of green hardening gel at Omega Red and Legion. Legion sent a haphazard blast of water at the glob aimed at her, but it was merely absorbed into the gelatinous substance. A few seconds later, both were trapped in a quickly-hardening prison.

Magneto grunted and brushed the debris off of his chest, staggering to his feet as this new form of Sentinel landed a few feet away from him, flanked by three "old" Sentinels hovering in the air directly above him.

Magneto feebly tried to push Nimrod back again with his magnetic powers, but Nimrod's power dampening field unsurprisingly rendered the gesture useless. Raising his hand, Nimrod moved the force field containing Pietro's unconscious form around in a semi-circle, slamming into Magneto's son into him a very high speed and sending both father and son into a tangled heap on the ground. With a nod, the Sentinels flanking Nimrod fired gel at Pietro and Magnus, taking care of the last two Acolytes.

"I fail to see the threat these Mutants pose," Nimrod said to himself. "This S.H.I.E.L.D. must be truly inefficient, to have not dealt with these threats long before my own creation."

Turning his thoughts inward, Nimrod commanded the group of Sentinels standing around him to pick up their new captives.

_Take them to the location downloaded into your processors. I have another confrontation I must attend._

* * *

Toad shrieked in mid-hop as a plasma blast streaked by him, missing him by mere inches.

"Toad, will you PLEASE shut up!" Wanda growled, concentrating all her hexing power on a Sentinel to keep it from launching any of its weapons as Avalanche sent a huge wave of force through the Earth at the giant robot, sending it onto its back. "Keep it up, Avalanche!"

Lance complied wordlessly, gritting his teeth as he continued to send waves through the ground towards the Sentinel, each wave damaging the downed robot more and more.

"We're dead, we're all dead!" Toad screamed, panicking. "Aw man, we could barely handle ONE of these things, and now we've got FIFTY BILLION of 'em attackin' us!"

"Try more like fifteen," Surge said as she raced by Toad, her body surging with electricity as she ran up the side of a Sentinel in the blink of an eye and rammed her left gauntlet into its optic, unleashing a huge bolt of electricity into the giant robot and sending it toppling.

In response to Surge's and Avalanche's attacks, the remaining thirteen Sentinels lifted off from the ground several dozen feet, but continued their assault on the Brotherhood members. Pyro, who had his mind occupied controlling a giant fire elemental attacking one of the giant robots was shot in the back with a large glob from another Sentinel's gel-gun, taking him out of the equation.

"This is… odd," Surge yelled to her teammates as she leaped off of the downed Sentinel before its head exploded, sending shrapnel everywhere. "They've all taken off from the ground to avoid Lance's attacks. It's like they're… learning from us."

"Since when are these things that smart?" Avalanche asked, sending a final wave of earth at the hexed Sentinel.

"They never were," Wanda said, releasing the hex field from the Sentinel Lance had just effectively destroyed. "Someone must be controlling them remotely. This has to be the work of S.H.I.E.L.D., they were the ones who had kept the Sentinel program going in a pathetic effort to deal with Apocalypse."

"Who cares who's behind it!?" Toad shrieked. "End result is, we're dead, we're dead, we're—"

Toad was so focused on panicking he didn't see the glob of green gel coming his way until it was too late.

"Great, that's three down," Avalanche groaned. "I hate to sound like Toad, but our odds of getting out of this okay are getting lower and lower."

Besides Pyro and Toad, Mystique had also been taken out of the fight, and quite early. After the initial loud impacts outside their underground headquarters, Mystique had woken up anyone who hadn't already been shaken awake and flew topside, morphed into a crow form to find out what was going on. The Sentinels, detecting her Mutant energy signature, apparently weren't fooled in the slightest. After half a minute of waiting, the rest of the Brotherhood members raced topside to find this small army of Sentinels waiting for them, a crow encased in a glob of hardened gel just a few yards away from their bases' hidden entrance.

Now deprived of Avalanche's distracting earthquakes, the remaining Brotherhood members were suddenly assaulted with a veritable barrage of green gel blobs. Wanda rolled to the side of one, only to be immediately struck by another. Avalanche followed Wanda's fate just a few seconds later.

"Aw man, we're dropping like flies here!" Blob said, lifting up one of the downed Sentinels' chests and taking refuge under it, Surge quickly following him under the giant robot's carcass.

"Freddy, I got an idea," Surge said, a smirk on her face. "Your throwing arm good?"

"Uh… yeah, a'course. Why?"

"Consider me your projectile."

Blob smiled, picking up on Noriko's idea. "Heheh. Get ready!"

Taking hold of Noriko with one arm and running out from under the downed Sentinel's chest, removing his other arm from under it and sending it crumpling back down onto the field, he then hoisted Surge onto his shoulders with both arms.

"Ready," Surge said, her eyes sparking light blue.

"Here we GO!" Blob said, taking Noriko by the legs, spinning her around and launching her towards one of the Sentinels hovering above. Flying towards her target Sentinel, Noriko let loose a blast of energy at the Sentinel's head, cracking its optics and blinding it. Seconds later, she latched onto its chest and steadied herself, then punched her metal-laced hand into its exposed internals and started to draw energy from it.

"Better make myself useful," Blob said to himself, jogging across the field towards the gel-covered form of Toad, his fellow Brotherhood member's face frozen in a permanent state of panic. The Sentinels had assessed that Surge was the highest threat currently, and most were directing their glob-guns at her, letting Blob jog across the field relatively free from Sentinel fire. The Sentinel's "gel shots" weren't having any effect on Surge, however, as the ever-expanding ball of electricity emanating from her as she absorbed the energy from the Sentinel she was currently "tapped" into was incinerating any gel globs that neared her position.

"Time to make yourself USEFUL, buddy!" Blob said as he lifted the hardened gel glob containing his friend onto his shoulder and hefted it at the nearest Sentinel. It impacted the giant robot right in the chest, punching a hole right through the center of its body. It apparently hit something vital, as the Sentinel lurched for a moment in the air before falling to the ground in a huge impact.

Blob ran out of the way as the Sentinel hit the ground, but was thrown to his knees from the force of the impact as it radiated through the earth. All it took was one second of weakness—before Blob could get back up, one of the remaining Sentinels had encased him in a glob of the fast-hardening goo.

Surge, meanwhile, had gathered a huge ball of electricity around her, her gauntlets and eyes containing so much energy they looked ready to burst. Crying out, Surge launched herself at superhuman speed from the drained Sentinel as it fell down towards the ground, directing of all her contained energy at the remaining Sentinels. A huge lightning bolt emanating from her slammed into one, two, three, four, five…

_Crud._

As Surge landed on the shoulder of the next Sentinel in line, she realized that even all the energy she absorbed from the one Sentinel—so much it was causing her to have heart palpitations, in fact, from such an overdose of energy—wasn't going to be enough to down the remaining eleven Sentinels.

Surge continued to direct the lightning bolt through the nearest five Sentinels, frying their internals and causing several of their systems to explode from overload. Screeching in pain for several seconds as the electricity coursed out of her, Surge finally let up, all of the energy drained from her system. The smell of charred skin and hair emanated strongly from her as she wobbled, and then fell from the Sentinel's shoulder towards the ground.

Seconds before she lapsed into unconsciousness, Surge felt a gelatinous substance impact her, encasing her quickly and hardening around her seconds before she hit the ground.

* * *

RRRRING! RRRRING! RRRRI—"

"Hello!? What?"

"Mayor Kelly, sir, you need to turn on your TV set."

"It's four in the morning, Jensen! That committee can wait until-- oh."

Robert Kelly was mesmerized by the images on screen as news reports flashed on every channel, getting out of his bed immediately and walking over to the TV he had turned on from the far side of his bedroom.

It was the Sentinel Disaster all over again. Only much, much worse.

As Mayor Kelly turned up the volume on the TV, he listened in on the newscasters' voiceovers as the scenes of destruction from various spots in Bayville flashed on the screen.

"An entire main street of Downtown Bayville has been destroyed by a group of at least ten of these gigantic robots, who seem intent on capturing a group of Mutants who apparently had been living in the sewers beneath…"

"Here, only on Channel 14, is exclusive footage of another Sentinel robot attacking an apartment building. Oddly, the robot seems to only be attacking one floor, singling out a particular occupant. We are unsure what the robot is after at this time, but we will continue to…"

"….dozens of confirmed sightings all over the city. The robots' destruction does not appear to be in any sort of pattern, and we here at Channel 5 are baffled as to why…"

"…thought the robot, popularly thought to be a Mutant experiment gone amok, had been destroyed, but now they are back and en masse. Who is behind this? Rest assured, we will keep you updated as…"

Robert Kelly cursed. He KNEW it was only a matter of time until a city-wide disaster had happened, with all these Mutants concentrated in Bayville. They had to have been the cause of this, he knew it in his gut. But why use robots when they themselves could just as easily have…

_….Wait._

"Jensen, are you still there?"

"…Of course, sir."

"How long has this been going on!?"

"The Sentinel robots landed here in Bayville no longer than twenty minutes ago, sir. The police and fire department are mobilizing, but it won't be enough. If we can get a hold of the President, declare Bayville a National Disaster Area and send in the Army and the National Guard, we may be able to prevent the destruction from becoming too—"

"Hold on a minute, hold on! Jensen, where are the confirmed Sentinel attacks occurring?"

"Uh…er… hold a minute, sir… Let's see here… the entirety of North Court Street has been torn up, as well as apartment buildings on 8th Street, Williams Street, and St. Sebastian, and a home in the suburbs of Bayville, on Hapland Drive… The largest swarm of the robots is rocketing over the city as we speak, towards the north end of the city limits, with a few other robots having been sighting skirting the city limits and moving towards…"

_…The north end of Bayville… Xavier's School._

"Jansen, quickly, pull up information on the residents of those buildings, as well as North Court Street. Do any Mutants live at those locations?"

"Pulling it up….. confirmed, we have three known Mutants, names Tabitha Smith, Dorian Leitch, and Remy LeBeau, living at the three apartment buildings that were attacked. There have been multiple Mutant complaints on North Court Street—Mutants stealing food and such—but nothing confirmed. I can't find any information about any Mutants living on Hapland Drive, however…"

"Must be one we don't know about yet," Kelly said, mostly to himself. "Jansen, listen to me and listen to me carefully. Have there been ANY casualties of the normal human variety? Are these robots seeking out our normal residents to kill, or are they focused entirely on these Mutants?"

"Um… now that you mention it sir, there does seem to be a correlation. Five confirmed human deaths so far, but that seems to be largely from collateral damage, and not from any direct Sentinel attacks on them. So these robots are after Mutants, for some reason. But still, that doesn't mean we just sit by and—"

"The heck it doesn't. Jansen, I don't know who sent these robots, but they're clearly after the Mutant infestation here in Bayville. Let all the law enforcement officers and news media know, _stay away from the robots_. Let them do their job. If we intervene, that will mean human deaths—a lot more deaths. And I won't have that on my conscience."

"But—what about the—"

"We've been defending ourselves from these Mutants for years now!" Kelly yelled into the phone angrily. His aide was not getting the message, and valuable time was being wasted. "It's time for _them_ to be on the defensive for once!"

Before Jansen could reply, Mayor Kelly turned off his cell phone. These robot attacks would be costly, yes—the property damage would run up quite a hefty bill.

But if they got rid of the Bayville Mutants once and for all, it would have been more than worth it.

* * *

Xavier looked around him, struck speechless by the utter devastation. All around him, his students and friends lay unconscious, frozen in those blasted green gelatinous cages. A few still fought on, but their powers were being systematically neutralized by the newcomer, and the Sentinels wasted no time freezing them in the green gel as soon as his students were no longer deemed a threat. Xavier was utterly helpless against these mindless automatons, and he currently lay painfully on his back on the ground, having been thrown off of his wheelchair by a laser blast from one of the Sentinels. Fires were burning all around the Institute grounds, making the air thick with acrid smoke that blotted out the night sky and made it extremely hard to breathe. With the dozens of Sentinels standing around him and the other members of his Institute, it did indeed look like the Institute had descended into Hell this night.

_I… I briefly foresaw this, but now? I never imagined it would have happened so soon, and with so little warning…_

Charles Xavier closed his eyes and wept silently. Had his visions been wrong—only one possible future among many? Was this really the end of it all? Xavier's mind raced, taking in the events of the past half an hour. It had all happened so fast…

Bobby and Jubilee, who had apparently been staying up extremely late playing video games, had woken him up, telling him what they had seen on the news. He had immediately sent out a telepathic message, telling all of his students and instructors to evacuate the Institute immediately and retreat a safe distance from the building. The Institute was built to stave off the occasional Mutant attack, but nothing like this. Having the building come down around them would have surely doomed them all—only fighting the Sentinels out here on the grounds, without the Institute around them being crushed, did they stand a chance.

And Xavier was proud of his X-Men; they had done remarkably well. Only a few had been frozen within the first ten minutes, despite more Sentinels arriving every minute. At the rate the X-Men had been taking out the Sentinels, it looked like they just might have attained a marginal victory if things had kept on their current path.

But, needless to say, they hadn't.

Ten minutes after the first Sentinels had landed on the grounds, the one Xavier had seen in his vision had arrived—a more compact Sentinel, to be sure, but from its impact it seemed exponentially more deadly. As soon as this new Sentinel had arrived, it quickly began to remove X-Man after X-Man from the equation. His tactics were repetitive, but incredibly effective—he merely disabled the Mutant powers of the current X-Man he had targeted, and the "old" Sentinels quickly moved in and froze the X-Man in gel before the new Sentinel moved on to his next target. Any attacks on the new Sentinel had been deflected easily by an apparently impenetrable force field surrounding it. It had taken them all down without breaking a figurative sweat.

Xavier's thoughts were interrupted as the Sentinel model in question landed in front of him, gazing down at him.

"Interesting. This target does not seem to be as much of a threat as most of the others, yet my archival knowledge designates him as the leader of these… X-Men," the robot said. Xavier got the distinct impression that if the new Sentinel could have, it would have raised an eyebrow.

"Regardless, it is immaterial. My directive proceeds without interruption."

Xavier winced as he heard a Sentinel touch down behind him, followed soon afterwards by a familiar "splorch" sound. A fraction of a second later, he was encased in a quickly-solidifying gel.

Nimrod looked down at the bald, crippled Mutant, still intrigued. But there would be ample opportunity to test his hypothesis later.

"The last target has been neutralized," Nimrod said aloud to the plethora of other Sentinels gathered around Xavier's flaming estate.

"Phase Two is complete. The Mutant threat in Bayville, New York, has been eliminated. Prepare for Phase Three: Extermination."

X-MEN: EVOLUTION SEASON 5

FIN


End file.
